PPP urges govt to show more responsibility than Imran, Qadri

LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab chapter has urged the government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to show more responsibility than Dr Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) during the current political situation. PPP Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo said in a statement on Tuesday that enough is enough and that now the government and contesting parties should retreat and instead let the sanity overtake their self-defeating brinkmanship.Wattoo appealed to the PAT and the PTI to show mercy to the nation and let them take a sigh of relief that had been on the tenterhooks for the last many days. He called upon the government, the PTI and the PAT to listen to the rest of political leadership and create space for hammering out a mutually agreed formula to break the deadlock for the sake of democracy and constitution. No doubt, he said, delay on the part of the government to read the gravity of the situation correctly and of taking action had led to making political situation of the country more problematic. He said that the bigger responsibility of taking appropriate steps like accepting the demands of the PTI urgently was on the shoulders of the government to save the country from plunging into anarchy.The PPP leader recalled that PML-N had entered the Red Zone of Islamabad and had also ransacked the Supreme Court, adding lawyers and other political parties also entered the zone but not like the PML-N had entered. He maintained that Pakistan Army was fighting the war of survival of the country, adding how naïve and regretful it was that a section of political parties were getting to each other’s hair at a time when they should be uniting the nation instead of dividing it, as national security was at stake.He referred to the advice of PPP Patron-in-Chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari last month in which he appealed to political parties to shun their differences for the time being and support the military operation in FATA wholeheartedly because terrorism poses the biggest threat to the security and independence of the masses.Wattoo also urged the rest of political leadership to give strong message urgently to the warring parties in no uncertain terms that their egoism would not be allowed to run down the constitution and democracy come what may. The constitution, democracy and rule of law could not be sacrificed at the altar of their strong likes or dislikes, he added.